![\"AIDS\"](\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/AIDS.png\")
<\/a>AIDS – 36 million<\/strong><\/h3>\nHIV\/AIDS was first regognised at a disease in the early 1980s, and has since grown into a global pandemic affecting millions across the globe.<\/p>\n
According to data compiled by UNAIDS<\/a>, approximately 30 million people have died due to AIDS-related illnesses since 2001 (an average of over 2.3 million people a year), with the total deaths since its discovery pegged at around 36 million people.<\/p>\n It’s estimated that 35.3 million people are currently living with the disease, mostly in Africa.<\/p>\n Cholera pandemics have struck since the 1800s, and to this day continues to affect millions of people, resulting in tens of thousands of deaths each year.<\/p>\n Big cholera pandemics in regions such as China, Russia and India have lead to the deaths of almost 40 million people.<\/p>\n One of the largest outbreaks hit India in the early 20th century, killing over 800,000 people in just over two decades.<\/p>\n The WHO estimates the total death toll from the 1918 flu pandemic at around 50 million casualties – however other experts<\/a> on the matter believe the global impact could be as high as 100 million people.<\/p>\n Before and since the 1918 crisis, there have been a number of flu outbreaks, including viral strains from animals such as birds and pigs, which have also claimed millions of lives.<\/p>\n Record of various global flu outbreaks between as early as 1760 and up to 2009 put additional deaths due to flu close to 50 million people.<\/p>\n Often cited as one of the deadliest epidemics in the world, the black plague is said to have killed almost half of the population in Europe between 1346 and 1350 – with the highest death figure reported at 200 million people.<\/p>\n Recent scientific research into The Black Death revealed that the epidemic was a type of plague caused by the Yersinia pestis<\/a> organism, which is the same organism responsible for the bubonic plague and various other plague forms.<\/p>\n This includes early plagues such as the Plague of Justinian (541-542AC), which reportedly claimed as many as 25 million lives, and later outbreaks of the bubonic plague in 1850s, which killed over 12 million people.<\/p>\n All-in-all plagues caused by Yersinia pestis have claimed the lives of well over the 200 million potential victims of the Black Death.<\/p>\n Smallpox is known as the only disease to be successfully eradicated, thanks in large part to global vaccination drives.<\/p>\n The disease had been prevalent since as early as the 16th century, and according to academics, is said to have caused the deaths of as many as 500 million people<\/a> in the 20th century, alone.<\/p>\n Historically, smallpox had a fatality rate of 30%, though its most severe forms were almost always fatal. The last diagnosed case of the disease occurring naturally was in 1977, while the WHO declared it eradicated in 1979.<\/p>\n Tuberculosis, along with HIV\/AIDS holds the title as the leading cause of adult mortality in the world today, killing between 1.5 million and 2 million people a year.<\/p>\n The WHO estimates that approximately one-third of the world’s population<\/a> is infected, with less than half of all TB cases ever diagnosed.<\/p>\n Research suggests that as many as 1 billion people have lost their lives to TB over the past two centuries – and projections by the WHO to 2020 have a best- and worst-case scenario pointing to 60 million – 90 million deaths, respectively.<\/p>\n The idea that malaria could have been the cause of death for 50 billion people in human history derives from a statement from journalist Sonia Shah<\/a>, whose book, “The Fever: How Malaria Has Ruled Humankind for 500,000 Years<\/em>” explores the history of the disease.<\/p>\n Taking the statement at face-value – and assuming the speculative figures from demographer Carl Haub that over 100 billion people have lived on earth<\/a> are accurate – this would mean that malaria has killed more than 50 billion people.<\/p>\n The figure is startling – but not completely implausible.<\/p>\n Author of “Parasites: Tales of Humanity\u2019s Most Unwelcome Guests”<\/i><\/span>, Rosemary Drisdelle, crunched the numbers<\/a> using both Haub’s numbers and Shah’s claim, noting that if most people died between 8000BC and 1650AD, this could account for 5.4 million deaths a year.<\/p>\n Considering the lack of treatment that would have been available, and the fact that the disease has apparently been with humanity for 500,000 years, it’s not completely implausible.<\/p>\n In 1999, the WHO reported that malaria could have claimed the lives of close to 200 million people in the 19th century alone – and the group’s contemporary death figures say as many as 1.2 million deaths a year<\/a> are still being attributable to the disease.<\/p>\n Taking this into account, it’s clear that malaria is the world’s biggest killer disease, having claimed billions of human lives.<\/p>\n “Did malaria kill between 53 and 54 billion of the 96 billion who lived before 1900? I\u2019m neither an epidemiologist nor a statistician…We\u2019ll never know for sure, but based on my reading I think it\u2019s possible,” Drisdelle said.<\/p>\n<\/a>Cholera – 40 million<\/strong><\/h3>\n<\/a>Influenza – 50 million<\/strong><\/h3>\n<\/a>Plague – 240 million<\/strong><\/h3>\n<\/a>Smallpox – 500 million<\/strong><\/h3>\n<\/a>Tuberculosis – 1 billion<\/strong><\/h3>\n<\/a>Malaria – 50 billion?<\/strong><\/h3>\n